Government shutdown: GOP tries to counter narrative

With time running out before the government closes for the first time since 1996, congressional Republicans are rallying around the same message: A shutdown won’t be our fault.

It was preemptive damage control as the GOP tried to counter the narrative that the House essentially voted early Sunday to close the federal government when they amended a Senate-passed continuing resolution to include several Obamacare-related provisions.

Heckler at House GOP rally

“If we have a shutdown, it will be because Harry Reid holds that absolutist position and essentially holds the American people hostage,” the Texas Republican said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “He says, ‘I’m not willing to compromise, I’m not willing to even talk. His position is 100 percent of Obamacare must be funded in all instances. Other than that, he’s going to shut the government down.”

Cruz, who derided Obamacare in a floor speech that spanned more than 21 hours last week, declined to say whether he will try to halt any further progress on the CR as it heads back to the Senate.

The House amended the Senate-passed CR to include provisions that would delay the health care law for a year, repeal the medical device tax that helps fund Obamacare and postpone until 2015 the law’s requirement that employers cover birth control as part of their health insurance packages.

Before the House even voted, Reid made clear the Senate wouldn’t pass a CR with anything that weakens the health care law. He’s not even bringing the Senate back into session until Monday afternoon, less than 12 hours before a shutdown would begin.

The Senate is “playing games,” Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “They need to come back.”

As host Candy Crowley pressed her that the Senate and Obama have vowed not to undo Obamacare, McMorris Rodgers insisted that it’s the upper chamber that needs to debate the health law in order to avert a shutdown.

“We’re pushing the Senate to listen to the American people,” she said.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, said he’d veto the legislation in the unlikely event in cleared the Senate. That’s prompted Republicans to renew their criticism of what they see as Obama’s unwillingness to negotiate.

“We would love for him to sit down and say, ‘Okay there are some problems with Obamacare,’” Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “We’ve been met with this attitude of no negotiation. Don’t want to sit down. Don’t want to talk about this. It’s my way or the high way.”

House Budget Committee ranking member Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) pushed back, explaining that Democrats have been trying to negotiate for months. He pointed to the Republican refusal to convene a conference to come to a compromise between the House and Senate passed budgets.

Instead, Van Hollen said, Republicans intentionally stalled budget negotiations so they could attach an attempt to defund Obamacare on a last-minute spending bill.

“Drive the country to the cliff and then say give us what we want,” Van Hollen said.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said lawmakers do need to debate whether changes to the health care law are needed.

“But we shouldn’t connect it to a government shutdown,” Kaine said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Democrats are portraying support for the House language as a vote for a shutdown. That message could carry huge political implications for Republicans. The GOP took the blame for the government shutdowns in the 1990s and polling suggests the same could happen now.

Republicans acknowledged as much, with Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador telling “Meet the Press”: “I think everybody agrees that this is a loser for us.”

“That’s why I think the president and the Democrats want to shut down the government,” Labrador said.

For weeks, Democrats have accused Republicans of “hostage taking” in order to attach Obamacare language to the CR. Mimicking that line of attack, Republicans argued it’s actually the other way around.

“[Obama is] saying 100 percent of Obamacare or the highway,” Sen. Rand Paul said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “The president’s the one saying ‘I will shut down government if you don’t give me everything I want on Obamacare.’ That, to me, is the president being intransigent and being unwilling to compromise.”

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) gave no signs that his colleagues are anywhere near backing down from their pledge to gut Obamacare. If the Senate were to again return a so-called clean CR to the House, Republicans would take another stab at blocking the health care law, he said.

“We will pass a bill … that will keep the government open, that will reflect the House that I believe the Senate can accept,” McCarthy said. It “will have fundamental changes into Obamacare that can protect the economy for America.”

The Senate does seem poised to pass one measure that the House cleared early Sunday morning. The House unanimously passed a bill that would allow military personnel to continue in a shutdown.

Kaine said while Democrats are unhappy with parts of the provision, it’s likely to pass easily.

“In all likelihood, we will,” Kaine said. “We think it’s insufficient – it doesn’t cover [the Department of Veterans Affairs] and other important workers – but it is necessary and I don’t suspect that it’ll be too controversial.”